As a sixty-six-year-old man I understand what you're thinking when I say how awful the youth are today: the Old Guy has a case of 'You pesky kids get off my lawn today!' again, right? But they HAVE become awful -- practically feral, and I don't just mean the 'urban' youth...

Yesterday, as I was leaving the McDonald's after breakfast -- my doctor says I need to stop eating that stuff, but I can't help it, I love the Sausage McMuffin with Egg -- I was stopped in the alley by a twelve-year-old boy pointing a gun at me. A gun! And twelve-years-old! With freckles! What is the world coming to...?

I figure he wants my wallet, and I figure it isn't worth dying for, so I tell him "It's OK, stay calm, son, I'll give you my money." But he stares at me with the beadiest yellow eyes I've ever seen on a boy that age, and he says "That ain't what I'm after, Gramps..."

He motions with the gun for me to move behind a dumpster, and then he proceeds to rape me in the ass! Ass-rape! By a twelve-year-old boy! At gunpoint...!

What ARE they teaching these kids in school today, anyway? He's fucking me in the ass, and the truth is it isn't really even that big a deal by itself -- his penis is pretty small, he's only twelve -- but it is the IDEA of the thing! What makes a twelve-year-old-boy think it is okay to anally rape a senior citizen at gunpoint...?

I thought things were bad when those skateboard punks knocked over my wife and broke her hip in front of the grocery store, but that was mostly just callous carelessness: THIS boy was fucking me! In the ass! By a dumpster..!

Being twelve-years-old, he came rather quickly, but what REALLY hurt was when he laughed and then said "Now you're my Bitch, Gramps..."

I did some stupid stuff when I was young -- once, I stole candy from a convenience store, but then my mother marched me right back and made me pay for it AND apologize the the owner: that's how things were done back then. What is THIS kid's mother going to do -- bring him by the house and make him say "I'm sorry" for fucking me in the ass? Maybe mow my lawn as punishment? Of course not! Parents today don't know a thing about raising proper children...

Ann: do you think your images do justice to the subtleties of color you see in the real thing? I find that very often my photos of meadows or other grassy areas with very subtle color never some through in a digital photo. Makes me wonder if the folks sticking to film are onto something...

There was a Louisiana contest and a Virginia contest today, but the 40m band was not great. I got 17 Virginias and 6 Louisianas. The Louisianas faded early.

Then they all disappeared and Europe started coming in, with some Russian contest.

I picked off one Cyprus, which would be a new country, just now. There are so many more countries there for the picking that weren't there in the 1950s. It's the spread of wealth and super electronic gear, I guess. They're univerally very good at morse code, which I guess they still have to know even if the US stopped requiring it.

It's kept amazing by running very low power (15w). I guess anybody would expect it with a KW but not such a tiny radio.

I was thinking, that once you get a quarter way around the world, as Cyprus is, the signal stops spreading, and in fact starts converging, so weakens very much less quickly than it does for smaller distances. In particular it's weakening less than the 1/r spread you'd expect for a mode trapped between earth and ionosphere.

Another odd feature of 40m is that you can talk out to about 20 miles and then there's nothing out to about 200 miles. The signal goes right over the near distance.

USA! USA! USA! Team USA upset the Dominicans last night in the World Baseball Classic, 6-3, and will join Puerto Rico, Japan and the Netherlands in the semi-final in Los Angeles. It was too bad that the game started at a ridiculously late 10 p.m. on the east coast.

How big an upset? Well, the talented Dominicans looked like the favorite to come out of the bracket, but ended up losing to both Team USA and Puerto Rico. The Japanese are the defending champs from four years ago, and I don't think they've lost a game yet that counted (yesterday's exhibition against the Chicago Cubs in Arizona doesn't), but in a single-elimination tournament, which the WBC is the rest of the way, anything can happen. Go Team USA!

The light in California is something special. I have always heard about it, but save for a brief visit in 2001 I had never been to California until recently. Have been traveling there more often lately and I must say, it's enchanting. Varied, depending on location, but always arresting.